Theater Reviews: K2, The Train Driver

Also, Venice, On Emotion, FDR and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Thursday, Oct 21 2010

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PHOTO BY ED KRIEGER

The Train Driver

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VENICE Pablo Picasso is famously credited with the epigram, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." He might also have added, "And all artists invariably steal from Shakespeare; the trick is in knowing what to take." In the case of this overwrought, albeit handsomely mounted musical co-production from Kansas City Rep and Center Theatre Group, writer-director Eric Rosen's search for a plot on which to hang actor-composer Matt Sax's rousing hip-hop- and R&B-infused score eventually led him to Othello. The result is less a theft than an act of vandalism. Set in a mythical near future, in a fictional city named Venice that has been wracked by 20 years of war, the story focuses on the political and fraternal rivalry between pro-peace leader General Venice Monroe (Javier Muñoz) — read: Othello the Moor — and his Iago-ish half-brother, the fascistic Captain Markos Monroe (Rodrick Covington). Venice aims to inaugurate his "Sunrise" peace policy with his public wedding to childhood sweetheart and Desdemona stand-in Willow (Andrea Goss) in the city's newly restored cathedral; Markos schemes to sabotage that symbolic act. How he does so involves a scheme so obtuse and shorn of Shakespeare's psychological subtleties that it requires a roving narrator, the Clown MC (Sax), to continuously clarify the characters' motivations in bursts of hip-hop exposition. Suffice it to say that by the time Markos achieves his nefarious ends, his victims include Venice's loyal lieutenant, Michael (Erich Bergen), Michael's Lady Gaga–like "love interest" (Angela Wildflower Polk), Markos' military-industrialist co-conspirator (J.D. Goldblatt) and, in the evening's most misbegotten bowdlerization of the Bard, Willow herself. The real tragedy of Rosen's self-consciously mythic melodrama is in its disservice to the show's powerhouse vocal talent and inspired production team. David Weiner's elegant lights, Meghan Raham's smart costumes and striking, bomb-ravaged church set and Jason H. Thompson's meta-theatrical projections all lend the evening a stylish polish. Sax's music emerges as the star attraction, and the audience undoubtedly will be humming the sweetly moving duet "The Wind Cried Willow," sung by Goss and the show's Emilia, Victoria Platt, on the drive home. The story, they'll likely forget before they unlock the car door. Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9280 Washington Blvd., Culver City; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; through Nov. 14. (213) 628-2772. centertheatregroup.org. (Bill Raden)